Rogue Wave’s “Publish My Love” was featured on The OC a few weeks ago.

It was the soundtrack as two of the main characters discussed a matter of importance. Or something.

There’s a silver lining to this dark and depressing pop culture cloud. And that lining is filled with music. Good music, to be precise, that the show’s producers have keenly plucked from indie-dom to be the soundtrack to the lives of rich, spoiled and fictional Orange County youths, MILFs and evil-doers.

Before you flick your tongues, consider that The OC soundtracks probably include at least one band you have on your iPod Nano:

Mates of State, Stars, A.C. Newman (of the New Pornographers), Imogen Heap, Modest Mouse, Beck, Matt Pond PA, Sufjan Stevens, Kaiser Chiefs, Gorillaz, LCD Soundsystem, Kasabian, Shout Out Louds, Of Montreal, Spoon, The Dandy Warhols, The Album Leaf, The Walkmen, The Thrills, Interpol, The Killers, Dios Malos and, of course, Death Cab for Cutie.

I don’t care how big of a music snob you are. That’s a ridiculously impressive list.

And now Rogue Wave is on it.

I asked frontman Zach Rogue about his “OC” moment, which he acknowledged as a good way to get his music out there, despite the eye-rolling nature of it all.

When I spoke with Rogue, his band (drummer Pat Spurgeon, guitarist Gram LeBron and bassist Evan Farrell) was on the road, touring in support of their sophomore album, Descended Like Vultures. After the Sup Pop re-release of their well-recieved first album Out of the Shadow in 2003, Rogue and his band opted for bigger and badder on their follow-up.

This meant more studio time and more collaboration. And for Rogue, this was a blessing. “The first record was done out of necessity. Now we play together. It opens up so many more possibilities. And there’s more ideas going into the songs, and more personalities and styles,” he added. “Ultimately it serves the music in a positive way.”

And on Descended Like Vultures, it does.

The album’s songs are layered and melodic in a Shins kind of way, with the opening track “Bird on a Wire” featuring Rogue Wave’s lush, expansive sound, as Rogue sings “Geriatric/At 20 years old.”

The aformentioned “Publish My Love” sounds like a radio single, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s big and bold and fun… probably why television producers plucked it for the show. It kicks in with a full array of guitars, drums, keys, and trumpet then drifts into Rogue’s vocals and acoustic guitar, followed by Spurgeon’s steady, strong drumming.

The sound of this record is way different from Rogue’s earlier release, which traveled more along an Elliot Smith-like, quieter road. And even on this album, there’s some strong variation between songs. “Salesman at the Day of the Parade,” for example, has an acoustic-strumming Rogue layered with drummer Spurgeon’s vocals and tambourine, while the swirling pop jangle of “You” has Rogue singing on top of echo and reverb.

“I feel like if you’re gonna make a record, make things sound different, make them sound like different time periods,” he said. “And then make it something you’d want to return to six months from now, six years from now. You want it to last.”

_{Click to enlarge}
Rogue Wave, from left to right: Pat Spurgeon, Zach Rogue,
Gram LeBron, Evan Farrell.

Descended Like Vultures’ first single “10:1” sounds like they spent a lot time in the studio working on it. It’s a vocally-filtered track with Rogue, Spurgeon and producer Bill Racine incorporating organs, transistor radios, wurlitzers and “guitar mutilation.” It contrasts nicely with the lo-fi “California,” a gorgeous melody that has Rogue strumming gently, singing “So screw California/and friends that are never there.”

Rogue was born in Oakland, and grew up in the East Bay.

“The Bay area is so diverse and it has so many cultures… so musically, there’s such a profound impact… San Francisco and Berkley in the ‘60s… a lot of that stuff left a big impression on me, my parents were so into it,” said Rogue. “They were very connected to that time period and that music, and it made me have a real respect for it.”

Rogue’s childhood was filled with instruments and music. “My parents encouraged me to go see bands. If REM came to town when I was in middle school, we’d go,” he said. “That was really my priority when I was a kid.”

Like his nom de rock, Rogue found himself looking for answers in different places. When his San Francisco web development firm was acquired in the dotcom bust, Mr. Rogue went to Washington, to work for a Middle East policy think tank. While he described his coworkers as “amazingly intelligent people,” the work and pace of District life left him looking for more.

“I just didn’t fit in. I didn’t like all the jockeying. It’s not fun to know how politics gets done,” he said. “I didnt feel like i had it in me to jump through the hoops and play the game. Especially given what we have going on now, it’s so ugly and so polarized. It’s a lot of demagogery and talking points. It’s not about making the country or world better, its about who your lobbyists groups are, and who can raise the most money and who can manipulate their soundbyte properly. All of it just sickened me, to be honest.”

So Rogue went back west, but the politics stayed with him, albeit in a more nuanced way.

“I don’t think the function of art is to be directly confrontational in that respect,” he said, discussing whether politics plays a part in his song-writing. “And if you do it has to be done in a way that’s really effective. Like that Broadcast song, “America’s Boy”... that’s so well done, it’s such a beautiful song… it still has that degree of detachment that doesn’t make it self-serving and arrogant.”

And staying focused and faithful to the music means remembering being that little boy whose parents took him to see REM in ‘86. “If we can keep that alive, that’s all we need. Everything else is bullshit.”

Upcoming shows:

Club Congress
Wednesday, Dec. 14
9 p.m.
w/ Mazarin
Cost: $8 at the door

Modified Arts (407 E. Roosevelt, Phoenix; 602-462-5516)
Thursday, Dec. 15
8 p.m.
w/ Mazarin, Source Victoria
Cost: tba